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With the help of two younger backs...We moved five pianos: one Yamaha console involving travel of 70 miles, one Yamaha P-22, then travel of another 40 miles to get back to my town, in a church one Cable studio down two flights of stairs and down a hall to a class room, one new Boston studio back up those same two flights to be put into its new home in the choir room, deliver my garden tiller to the shop, then picked up my mother-in-law's gift of her old lawn tractor and took to my shop (18 miles), then travelled an 85-mile round trip to move a Kimball grand from one home in the middle of nowhere to another home in the middle of nowhere.Now I am home, thankful, safe, and glad for younger backs!

Tuned in a church today that had a Hammond B3 and 2 Leslies that looked as if it had just came from the showroom floor. Its an Apostolic (fundamentalist) church and the Leslies were turned up all the way to 11.

With the help of two younger backs...We moved five pianos: one Yamaha console involving travel of 70 miles, one Yamaha P-22, then travel of another 40 miles to get back to my town, in a church one Cable studio down two flights of stairs and down a hall to a class room, one new Boston studio back up those same two flights to be put into its new home in the choir room, deliver my garden tiller to the shop, then picked up my mother-in-law's gift of her old lawn tractor and took to my shop (18 miles), then travelled an 85-mile round trip to move a Kimball grand from one home in the middle of nowhere to another home in the middle of nowhere.Now I am home, thankful, safe, and glad for younger backs!

Hi Phil,

regarding the need for younger backs, have you or anybody else seen these piano stair climber robots in action?

There is a piano rental company in Helsinki, Finland, using one of these for transports. Amazing engineering, to say the least.

Today I worked on an old Thiebes-Sterlin Upright from 1910. Of course it was over a step flat and had several keys sticking. The customer wanted it up to A-440 due to the fact that she was starting lessons with her son. I saw that there were already five broken strings in the treble and I think it was a 3/4 plate. There was a note from a previous tech that back in 1985 it had been tuned a step flat, however there was another note that back in 1949 it was in fact tuned to A-440. I warned her of the risks of pulling it up to A-440, she thought about it and said, "Ok, let's go for it." Only three more strings broke during the pitch raise. I replaced all eight of the broken strings, cleaned out all of the junk that was causing several keys to stick, among which was a large metal yard stick. I adjusted the lost motion, reinstalled the rods for the soft pedal which had been in the bottom of the piano for years, realigned a few hammer springs, fixed a bridal strap and adjusted a few of the back checks. 4 1/2 hours later she ended up sounding pretty good! The customer was VERY happy! Sometimes the old "clunkers" are the most satisfying to work on because the transformation is so dramatic, but man, am I tired though! :-)

Yesterday I serviced a piano that was one of the very first I ever worked on. It was for a friend of mine who is a retired choir teacher. When I first started out she let me come and tune her piano just for the practice. It's an early Acrosonic. It needed a large pitch raise and of course a string broke. It was the first string that I ever had to replace. Every year when I service this piano, I would always look at that broken string and think what a crummy job I did. The coils were terrible. So today I finally fixed it. It now has nice neat coils. It's rewarding to see the progress I've made as a piano technician.

Today, I've been awake since 3 a.m. Couldn't sleep with the sound of heavy rain. We received 5 inches of rain here overnight. No flooding at my house, but major and ongoing flooding to many of the towns and villages I service in the Mohawk Valley of upstate New York. This is the second "100 year flood" in 7 years...the last coming on this same day in 2006.

Today, I've been awake since 3 a.m. Couldn't sleep with the sound of heavy rain. We received 5 inches of rain here overnight. No flooding at my house, but major and ongoing flooding to many of the towns and villages I service in the Mohawk Valley of upstate New York. This is the second "100 year flood" in 7 years...the last coming on this same day in 2006.

A church I tune for received a moderately competently rebuilt 1906 Weber 9ft concert grand, and they decided to install it as their sanctuary piano, replacing a 1989 Y-C with extremely jumpy pins (kinda glad to see that one demoted...).

This is first I had seen one of these, and was struck by the four-string unisons in the upper two treble sections, along with the exposed pin block (I thought that was a 19th century thing). The hammer strike all four strings in the four-string unisons.

[...] along with the exposed pin block (I thought that was a 19th century thing). [...]

Totally early 20th century thing, too! The questions are--when did the idea of the exposed pin block cease? Who was the first to cease? What reasons did they give for ceasing? And, who was the last to cease?

I tuned a Kawai studio which I hadn't tuned in five years to the week. Yes, it really needed tuning. However, in my notes I saw that five years ago I had done a significant aural pitch raise of 40 cents, to A 441. I was pleased to find it had not dropped below 440 since then.

I cleaned and tuned a 1937 Ed. Seiler upright for acquaintances. Immaculate ivories, and generally very well-kept - but extremely dusty, honky-tonky and mostly 80-100 cents below pitch. It's a family heirloom from the husband's dad; he doesn't play, but the wife wants to start playing again. Fortunately the pinblock took the tuning well, no broken strings, and once I got through: what a beautiful sounding instrument... played a bit of modest Bach and Chopin for them, and they were visibly moved.

I tuned an Indonesian Kawai GM-10 baby grand today. I've never seen a grand with a capo/bearing bar all the way across the scale before; no agraffes at all. I found it to be quite jumpy from the mid-treble all the way down.

Apart from pitch adjusting and tuning a couple of pianos today and epoxying on a new bass bridge I made back onto it's apron, I watched a very interesting youtube video with Larry Pratt and Piers Morgan.

Here's every tuner's good morning wake up call. First call of the morning, 8 AM at a Catholic High School to tune a Kawai RX-2 Grand in the Choir room. I knew where the choir room is but the doors I usually entered were locked. There were words stenciled on the door that said all visitors must enter through the Main Entrance and sign in at the office. That has become the usual procedure now with all of the incidents of violence of one sort or another these days.

So, I got back in my car and drove around to the front of the huge and sprawling structure. There were some "Visitor's" spaces but they were all full so I parked in the one space left that was marked, "Employees Only". There were long steps up to two large, wooden doors but they were locked as well. Finally, with heavy bag on my shoulder as well as vacuum cleaner that I always have for any grand piano, I found a side door that was marked, "Main Entrance". I had to press a button and wait for a response as a camera eye observed me.

After a minute or two, a voice said, "May I help you?" and I announced that I was there to tune the piano in the Choir Room. I was expected, so the door unlocked with a click as I was told also to come to the Main Office. That was not exactly clear where it was but I found it after traipsing around for a few minutes.

I signed in, already now 15 minutes past my appointed time. I had to wait for a custodian to come with keys to let me in the door to the Choir room. He lead me down corridors and several stair cases past the doors I used to come through to reach the Choir room. The door had a handle lock and a dead bolt, so he locked only the handle and said I was to report back to the office when I was finished so that he would get a call to lock the dead bolt also when I was finished.

I immediately saw that the former Fazer Studio pianos they used to have had been replaced with Yamaha Clavinovas because the the Fazers never stayed in tune more than a month at best, going wildly sharp in Summer and the same amount flat in Winter every year, year after year. The teachers had always thought they did not stay in tune because they were "cheap" pianos. But the choir room is in the lowest level of the building across the hall from the swimming pool. That meant extremely high humidity in Summer but very low humidity in Winter, year after year, every year.

However, on the far side of the room sat a grand piano with a canvas cover on it and I saw that it had a humidity control system, was plugged in and the light panel only showed green. I removed the canvas cover but found out immediately that the piano was locked! I looked in the bench but found no key. Thinking that it would only consume more time t call the main office and even more time to produce the key, I used my flange spacing tool to jimmy the lock open as i had learned long ago how to do in only seconds.

The piano had a string cover and was immaculately clean with all hammers appearing straight across and above the individual rebound pads. The piano looked brand new, so I thought with all of what I went through to get to it, it would now turn out to be an easy job.

I put in my strip mutes and then sounded the A3 key for pitch. The lights on my Sanderson Accu-Tuner IV spun very fast and the note indicator shifted to G#3. I measured A3 at -67.5! A3 turned out to be about the sharpest note on the whole piano!

I performed one massive pitch raise tuning on the piano which had very tight tuning pins (but not jumpy or squeaky). By the time I was finished with one massive pitch raisei, only had about 40 minutes until my next appointment to tune three pianos at a Chinese Christian church.

That appointment had already been rescheduled to overtime having been spent the week before on a piano that had loose butt plates and center pins walking out sideways. So, I needed to be on time for my next appointment because people would be waiting for me at the Chinese church to unlock their door too because it was in a neighborhood where people would wander in through any unlocked door if they got the chance.

I packed up, went the main office and said I would have to come back again at the end of the day to finish tuning the piano. I went to the Chinese church after grabbing a bite to eat. I was right on time and I greeted the man and lady who were waiting for me in their language. I was welcomed as I had been tuning their pianos for many years and they recognized me. Those pianos including nice Kawai RX-6, a Wurlitzer Console and a Yamaha P-22 Studio went without incident.

I returned to the Catholic High School, the door to the main office was locked so I pressed the button twice but there was no answer. I called the contact number that I had been given but only a voice message replied. As, I was trying to leave a message, a custodian happened by and let me in. I went again to the main office and the lady was still there and she apologized for not answering either the door or her phone because she had been "busy". She asked the custodian to escort me again to the Choir Room.

When the custodian tried the door, it was found to be unlocked! He let me in and turned on the lights. I went to the piano with cover on(as I had left it) but found it again to be locked! I jimmied the lock open again. I put in my muting strips and found that my Pitch Raise calculation had been good. The piano only needed one slight pitch correction and a fine tuning.

I got home after that with two hours remaining before music rehearsal. I made a light dinner, then went to the rehearsal. I was asked to stay when it was over to rehearse a number for which only certain people had been invited.

Tuned a 51", 1907, German upright piano. Lovely to tune. Tuned the low bass with slightly narrow 10:5 octaves, slightly wide 6:3 octaves in the high bass, 4:1 double octaves throughout the middle, treble and high treble.

Tuned four uprights and one grand. Don't normally do more than three a day, but tis the season for tuning right before Christmas. It's been a very busy quarter and I'm looking forward to some time off with my family.